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User blog:Granpa/Hitler
Fascism :Divide and conquer. :Own Nothing. Control everything. From Wikipedia:Fascism Fascism is a radical, authoritarian or totalitarian nationalist or ultranationalist political ideology. Fascists paradoxically promote violence and war as actions that create positive transformation in society. Fascists exalt militarism as providing national regeneration, spiritual renovation, vitality, education, instilling of a will to dominate in people's character, and creating national comradeship through military service. Fascists view conflict as an inevitable fact of life that is responsible for all human progress Ultimately, it is easier to define fascism by what it is against than by what it is for. Fascism is anti-anarchist, anti-communist, anti-conservative, anti-democratic, anti-individualist, anti-liberal, anti-parliamentary, anti-bourgeois, and anti-proletarian. It entails a distinctive type of anti-capitalism and is typically, with few exceptions, anti-clerical. Fascism rejects the concepts of egalitarianism, materialism, and rationalism in favour of action, discipline, hierarchy, spirit, and will. In economics, fascists oppose liberalism (as a bourgeois movement) and Marxism (as a proletarian movement) for being exclusive economic class-based movements. Indeed, fascism is perhaps best described as "anti-ism"; that is, the philosophy of being against everyone and everything all of the time. The only place where fascism makes any sense is bootcamp. But if fascists had their way they would turn the entire world into one big never-ending boot camp Back to top Hitler See also: Cult of personality A reportA Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler. His Life and Legend by Walter C. Langer. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Washington, D.C. With the collaboration of Prof. Henry A. Murr, Harvard Psychological Clinic, Dr. Ernst Kris, New School for Social Research, Dr. Bertram D. Lawin, New York Psychoanalytic Institute. p. 219 (Nizkor project)Dr. Langer's work was published after the war as The Mind of Adolf Hitler, the wartime report having remained classified for over twenty years. prepared during the war by the United States Office of Strategic Services describing Hitler's psychological profile states: He has been able, in some manner or other, to unearth and apply successfully many factors pertaining to group psychology Capacity to appeal to the most primitive, as well as the most ideal inclinations in man, to arouse the basest instincts and yet cloak them with nobility, justifying all actions as means to the attainment of an ideal goal. Appreciation of winning confidence from the people by a show of efficiency within the organization and government. It is said that foods and supplies are already in the local warehouses when the announcement concerning the date of distribution is made. Although they could be distributed immediately the date is set for several weeks ahead in order to create an impression of super-efficiency and win the confidence of the people. Every effort is made to avoid making a promise which cannot be fulfilled at precisely the appointed time Hitler's ability to repudiate his own conscience in arriving at political decisions has eliminated the force which usually checks and complicates the forward-going thoughts and resolutions of most socially responsible statesmen. He has, therefore, been able to take that course of action which appeals to him as most effective without pulling his punches. The result has been that he has frequently outwitted his adversaries and attained ends which would not have been as easily attained by a normal course. Nevertheless, it has helped to build up the myth of his infallibility and invincibility. Equally important has been his ability to persuade others to repudiate their individual consciences and assume that role himself. He can then decree for the individual what is right and wrong, permissible or impermissible and can use them freely in the attainment of his own ends. As Goering has said: "I have no conscience. My conscience is Adolph Hitler." This has enabled Hitler to make full use of terror and mobilize the fears of the people which he evaluated with an almost uncanny precision. His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it. From Wikipedia:Political views of Adolf Hitler After World War I, Hitler stayed in the army, which was mainly engaged in suppressing socialist uprisings across Germany, including in Munich, where Hitler returned in 1919. In July 1919 Hitler was appointed Verbindungsmann (intelligence agent) of an Aufklärungskommando (reconnaissance commando) of the Reichswehr, both to influence other soldiers and to infiltrate the German Workers' Party (DAP). Much like the political activists in the DAP, Hitler blamed the loss of the First World War on Jewish intrigue at home and abroad. Hitler became impressed with founder Anton Drexler's antisemitic, nationalist, anti-capitalist and anti-Marxist ideas. On the orders of his army superiors, Hitler applied to join the party, and within a week was accepted. Hitler was discharged from the army on 31 March 1920 and began working full-time for the party. Displaying his talent for oratory and propaganda skills, with the support of Drexler, Hitler became chief of propaganda for the party in early 1920. Party members promulgated their 25-point manifesto on 24 February 1920 (co-authored by Hitler, Anton Drexler, Gottfried Feder, and Dietrich Eckart). At the same time the party changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NS-DAP), commonly known as the Nazi Party. Back to top Brownshirts From Wikipedia:Sturmabteilung and Wikipedia:Stennes Revolt The Sturmabteilung (SA), literally Storm Battalion (i.e. stormtroopers), functioned as the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. The SA developed by organizing and formalizing the groups of ex-soldiers and beer hall brawlers. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s. Its primary purposes were providing protection for Nazi rallies and assemblies, disrupting the meetings of opposing parties, fighting against the paramilitary units of the opposing parties, especially the Red Front Fighters League of the Communist Party of Germany, and intimidating Slavs, Romanis, trade unionists, and, especially, Jews – for instance, during the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses. The SA were also called the "Brownshirts" (Braunhemden) from the color of their uniform shirts. In 1922, the Nazi Party created a youth section, the Jugendbund (youth band), for young men between the ages of 14 and 18 years. Its successor, the Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend or HJ), remained under SA command until May 1932. In the second half of 1922 Hyperinflation caused many personal fortunes to be rendered worthless. When the German government failed to meet its reparations payments and French troops marched in to occupy the industrial areas along the Ruhr in January 1923, widespread civil unrest was the result. By November 1923, the US dollar was worth 4,210,500,000,000 German marks. French and British economic experts began to claim that Germany deliberately destroyed its economy to avoid war reparations. The book, “Adolf Hitler: His Life and His Speeches,” by Baron Adolf Victor von Koerber was published in early fall of 1923. The book compares Hitler to Jesus, likening his moment of politicization to Jesus’ resurrection and using terms such as ‘holy’ and ‘deliverance’. It also argues that it should become ‘the new bible of today’. It is now suspected that Hitler himself wrote the book. The Beer Hall Putsch was a failed coup attempt on 8–9 November 1923 by the Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler and other Kampf-bund leaders, including Gregor Strasser a regional head of the SA in Lower Bavaria, to seize power in Munich, Bavaria. Röhm, Hitler, General Erich Ludendorff, Lieutenant Colonel Hermann Kriebel and six others were tried in February 1924 for high treason. Röhm was found guilty and sentenced to a year and three months in prison, but the sentence was suspended and he was granted a conditional discharge. After a few weeks in prison Strasser was released because he had been elected a member of the Bavarian Landtag While Hitler was in prison (and writing Mein Kampf), Ernst Röhm helped to create the Frontbann as a legal alternative to the then-outlawed SA. At Landsberg prison in April 1924, Röhm had also been given authority by Hitler to rebuild the SA in any way he saw fit. Hitler was released on parole on 20 December 1924 and Hess ten days later. The ban on the NSDAP and SA was lifted in February 1925. When in April 1925 Hitler and Ludendorff disapproved of the proposals under which Röhm was prepared to integrate the 30,000-strong Frontbann into the SA, Röhm resigned. The Mueller government imploded in late March 1930. Its successor, the Bruening government, was unable to obtain a parliamentary majority. Members of the SA in Berlin, led by Stennes, had for some time been voicing objections to the policies and purposes of the SA, as defined by Hitler. These SA members saw their organization as a revolutionary group, the vanguard of a national-socialist order that would overthrow the hated Republic by force. Stennes complained that advancement within the SA was improperly based upon cronyism and favoritism rather than upon merit. He objected to the general law-abiding approach that Adolf Hitler had adopted after the Beer Hall Putsch, and he and his men chafed under the Hitlerian order to terminate street attacks upon Communists and Jews. Stennes decided that action was needed to make a statement. The SA then stormed the Gau office on the Hedemannstrasse, injuring the SS men and wrecking the premises. In September 1930, as a consequence of the Stennes Revolt in Berlin, Hitler assumed supreme command of the SA as its new Oberster SA-Führer. The SA cheered and were delighted that their leader was finally giving them the recognition they felt they deserved. He sent a personal request to Röhm, asking him to return to serve as the SA's chief of staff. Röhm accepted this offer and began his new assignment on 5 January 1931. Röhm established new Gruppen which had no regional Nazi Party oversight. Each Gruppe extended over several regions and was commanded by a SA Gruppenführer who answered only to Röhm or Hitler. Many of these stormtroopers believed in the socialist promise of National Socialism and expected the Nazi regime to take more radical economic action, such as breaking up the vast landed estates of the aristocracy once they obtained national power. Beefsteak Nazi was a term used in Nazi Germany to describe Communists and Socialists who joined the Nazi Party. These individuals were like a 'beefsteak' – brown on the outside and red on the inside. The term was particularly used for working-class members of the Sturmabteilung (SA) who were aligned with Strasserism. Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933 by Paul von Hindenburg. Göring (the number two man in the Nazi Party) was named as Minister Without Portfolio, Minister of the Interior for Prussia, and Reich Commissioner of Aviation. The Reichstag fire occurred on the night of 27 February 1933. Göring was one of the first to arrive on the scene. (At the Nuremberg trials, General Franz Halder testified that Göring admitted responsibility for starting the fire.) The Nazis took advantage of the fire to advance their own political aims. The Reichstag Fire Decree, passed the next day on Hitler's urging, suspended basic rights and allowed detention without trial. Göring demanded that the detainees should be shot, but Rudolf Diels, head of the Prussian political police, ignored the order. After only two months in office the Reichstag body passed the Enabling Act on 24 March 1933 giving the Reich Chancellor full legislative powers for a period of four years – the Chancellor could introduce any law without consulting Parliament. Rudolf Hess was named Deputy Führer of the NSDAP on 21 April 1933. Hitler's leadership style involved giving contradictory orders to his subordinates, while placing them into positions where their duties and responsibilities overlapped. In this way, Hitler fostered distrust, competition, and infighting among his subordinates to consolidate and maximise his own power After Hitler and the Nazis obtained national power, the SA became increasingly eager for power itself. The SA leaders argued that the Nazi revolution had not ended when Hitler achieved power, but rather needed to implement socialism in Germany (see Strasserism). The SA numbered over three million men and many saw themselves as a replacement for the "antiquated" Reichswehr. Röhm's ideal was to absorb the army (then limited by law to no more than 100,000 men) into the SA, which would be a new "people's army". This deeply offended and alarmed the army, and threatened Hitler's goal of co-opting the Reichswehr. The SA's increasing power and ambitions also posed a threat to the other Nazi leaders. Back to top SS and Gestapo Originally an adjunct to the SA, the Schutzstaffel (SS), or protection squad, was placed under the control of Heinrich Himmler in part to restrict the power of the SA and their leaders. The younger SS had evolved to be more than a bodyguard unit for Hitler and showed itself better suited to carry out Hitler's policies, including those of a criminal nature. Over time the SS became answerable only to Hitler, a development typical of the organizational structure of the entire Nazi regime, where legal norms were replaced by actions undertaken under the Führerprinzip (leader principle), where Hitler's will was considered to be above the law.Wikipedia:Schutzstaffel As Interior Minister of Prussia Göring had command of the largest police force in Germany. Göring detached the political and intelligence sections from the police and filled their ranks with Nazis. On 26 April 1933, Göring merged the two units as the Geheime Staatspolizei (Secret State Police), which was abbreviated by a post office clerk and became known as the "Gestapo". The first commander of the Gestapo was Rudolf Diels. On 5 March 1933, yet another Reichstag election took place, the last to be held before the defeat of the Nazis. It was not the landslide expected by the party leadership. Goebbels finally received Hitler's appointment to the cabinet, officially becoming head of the newly created Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda on 14 March 1933. Concerned that Diels was not ruthless enough to effectively counteract the power of the Sturmabteilung (SA), Göring handed over control of the Gestapo to Himmler on 20 April 1934. Himmler named Reinhard Heydrich (whom Hitler called "the man with the iron heart") to head the Gestapo on 22 April 1934. Himmler asked Heydrich to assemble a dossier on Röhm. Heydrich manufactured evidence that suggested that Röhm had been paid 12 million marks by French agents to overthrow Hitler. Hitler was also concerned that Röhm and the SA had the power to remove him as leader. Göring and Himmler played on this fear by constantly feeding him with new information on Röhm's proposed coup. A masterstroke was to claim that Gregor Strasser, whom Hitler hated, was part of the planned conspiracy against him. With this news Hitler ordered all the SA leaders to attend a meeting in the Hanselbauer Hotel in Bad Wiessee. On 30 June 1934, Hitler, accompanied by SS units, arrived at Bad Wiessee, where he personally placed Röhm and other high-ranking SA leaders under arrest. (See Night of the Long Knives). The homosexuality of Röhm and other SA leaders was made public to add "shock value", even though the sexuality of Röhm and other named SA leaders had been known by Hitler and other Nazi leaders for years. Arriving back at party headquarters in Munich, Hitler addressed the assembled crowd. Consumed with rage, Hitler denounced "the worst treachery in world history." War Is a Racket Back to top Einsatzgruppen In response to Adolf Hitler's plan to invade Poland on 1 September 1939, Heydrich re-formed the Einsatzgruppen to travel in the wake of the German armies. Membership at this point was drawn from the SS, the SD, the police, and the Gestapo. From September to December 1939 the Einsatzgruppen and others took part in Action T4, a programme of systematic murder undertaken by the Nazi regime of persons with physical and mental disabilities and patients of psychiatric hospitals. Then following a Hitler-Himmler directive, the Einsatzgruppen were re-formed in anticipation of the invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa). The invasion was set for 15 May 1941, though it was delayed for over a month. The Commissar Order was an order issued by the German High Command (OKW) on 6 June 1941. It instructed the Wehrmacht that any Soviet political commissar identified among captured troops be summarily executed. The Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, started at 03:15 on Sunday, 22 June 1941 during a waning crescent moon. On 2 July 1941 Heydrich issued an order to his Einsatzkommandos for the on-the-spot execution of all Bolsheviks, interpreted by the SS to mean all Jews. One of the first indiscriminate massacres of men, women, and children in Reichskommissariat Ukraine took the lives of over 4,000 Polish Jews in occupied Łuck on 2–4 July 1941, murdered by Einsatzkommando 4a assisted by the Ukrainian People's Militia. On the orders of Himmler, forwarded to Odilo Globocnik soon after his visit to Lublin on 17–20 July 1941 concentration camp Lublin (Majdanek) was established in October 1941. On 13 October 1941, SS Leader Odilo Globocnik received an oral order from Himmler – anticipating the fall of Moscow – to start immediate construction work on the first killing centre at Bełżec. In October 1941, Herbert Lange chose Chełmno on the Ner for an extermination centre, because of the estate, with a large manor house similar to Sonnenstein. The Generalplan Ost (General Plan for the East) called for deporting the population of occupied Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to Siberia, for use as slave labour. The initial plan was to implement Generalplan Ost after the conquest of the Soviet Union. However, with the entry of the United States into the war in December 1941 and the German failure in the Battle of Moscow, Hitler decided that the Jews of Europe were to be exterminated immediately rather than after the war, which now had no end in sight. Chełmno extermination camp was the first of the Nazi German extermination camps. It operated from December 8, 1941. In January 1942, during a secret meeting of German leaders chaired by Reinhard Heydrich, Operation Reinhard was drafted. Within months, three top-secret camps (at Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka) were built. Under Eichmann's supervision, large-scale deportations began almost immediately. The extermination camps of Operation Reinhard kept no prisoners. To hide the evidence of this war crime, all bodies were burned in open air pits. In the second phase of annihilation, the Jewish inhabitants of central, western, and south-eastern Europe were transported by Holocaust trains to camps with newly-built gassing facilities. Germany invaded Hungaria (land of the Huns) on 19 March 1944. Berlin fell in May 1945. |} Highly recommend: War and Peace by Tolstoy Back to top Military-industrial complex From Wikipedia:Chance for Peace speech: The Chance for Peace speech, also known as the Cross of Iron speech, was an address given by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower on April 16, 1953, shortly after the death of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Eisenhower expressed regret for having set the precedent of large peacetime military expenditures. From: _The White House Years 1956-61_ by Dwight D. Eisenhower: From Wikipedia:Eisenhower's farewell address Despite being a politician with a military background and the only general to be elected president in the 20th century, Eisenhower famously warned the nation with regards to the corrupting influence of what he describes as the "military-industrial complex". He also expressed his concomitant concern for corruption of the scientific process as part of this centralization of funding in the Federal government: In 2011, the United States spent more (in absolute numbers) on its military than the next 13 nations combined. Back to top Real wages Real wages increased with productivity until Reagan introduced supply side economics. Back to top The President and the Press From Wikisource:The President and the Press The President and the Press: Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association (1961) by John F. Kennedy. Delivered in Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City, April 27, 1961. Back to top Cuban missile crisis From Wikipedia:Carlos Prío Socarrás: On '''July 1, 1948 Carlos Prio was elected president of Cuba as a member of the Partido Auténtico. Prío, called el presidente cordial ("the cordial president"), was committed to a rule marked by civility, primarily in its respect for freedom of expression. Several public-works projects and the establishment of a National Bank and Tribunal of Accounts count among his successes. However, violence among political factions and reports of theft and self-enrichment in the government ranks marred Prío's term. With elections scheduled for the middle of 1952, rumors surfaced of a planned military coup by long-shot presidential contender Fulgencio Batista. Prío, seeing no constitutional basis to act, did not do so. The rumors proved to be true. Batista assumed power when Prío, failing to mount a resistance, boarded a plane and went into exile. From Wikipedia:Bay of Pigs Invasion: Prio's exile was the reason for the Movement led by Castro which succeeded 31 December 1958. Castro severed the country's formerly strong links with the US after nationalizing American industrial assets (banks, oil refineries, sugar and coffee plantations) along with other American owned businesses. Castro forged strong economic links with the Soviet Union. US President Dwight D. Eisenhower was very concerned at the direction Castro's government was taking, and in March 1960 he allocated $13.1 million to the CIA to plan Castro's overthrow. The CIA proceeded to organize the operation with the aid of various Cuban counter-revolutionary forces, training Brigade 2506 in Guatemala. Eisenhower's successor, John F. Kennedy, approved the final invasion plan on 4 April 1961. Over 1,400 paramilitaries, divided into five infantry battalions and one paratrooper battalion, assembled in Guatemala before setting out for Cuba by boat on 13 April 1961. Two days later, on 15 April, eight CIA-supplied B-26 bombers attacked Cuban airfields and then returned to the US. On the night of 16 April, the main invasion landed at a beach named Playa Girón in the Bay of Pigs. It initially overwhelmed a local revolutionary militia. The Cuban Army's counter-offensive was led by José Ramón Fernández before Castro decided to take personal control of the operation. As the US involvement became apparent to the world, and with the initiative turning against the invasion, Kennedy decided against providing further air cover. As a result, the operation only had half the forces the CIA had deemed necessary. On 20 April, the invaders surrendered after only three days. From Wikipedia:Cuban Missile Crisis: In response to the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961 and the presence of American Jupiter ballistic missiles in Italy and Turkey, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed to Cuba's request to place nuclear missiles on the island to deter a future invasion. An agreement was reached during a secret meeting between Khrushchev and Fidel Castro in July 1962, and construction of a number of missile launch facilities started later that summer. The missile preparations were confirmed when an Air Force U-2 spy plane produced clear photographic evidence of medium-range (SS-4) and intermediate-range (R-14) ballistic missile facilities. The US established a naval blockade on October 22 to prevent further missiles from reaching Cuba; The US announced it would not permit offensive weapons to be delivered to Cuba and demanded that the weapons already in Cuba be dismantled and returned to the Soviet Union. After several days of tense negotiations, an agreement was reached between US President John F. Kennedy and Khrushchev. Publicly, the Soviets would dismantle their offensive weapons in Cuba and return them to the Soviet Union in exchange for a US public declaration and agreement to avoid invading Cuba again. Secretly, the United States agreed that it would dismantle all US-built Jupiter MRBMs, which had been deployed in Turkey against the Soviet Union. When all offensive missiles and Ilyushin Il-28 light bombers had been withdrawn from Cuba, the blockade was formally ended on November 21, 1962. From Wikipedia:Anastas Mikoyan: Khrushchev feared that Castro's hurt pride and widespread Cuban indignation over the concessions he had made to Kennedy might lead to a breakdown of the agreement between the Soviet Union and the US. To prevent that, Khrushchev decided to offer to give Cuba more than 100 tactical nuclear weapons that had been shipped to Cuba along with the long-range missiles but, crucially, had escaped the notice of US intelligence. Khrushchev determined that because the Americans had not listed the missiles on their list of demands, keeping them in Cuba would be in the Soviet Union's interests. Anastas Mikoyan was tasked with the negotiations with Castro over the missile transfer deal. While in Havana, Mikoyan witnessed the mood swings and paranoia of Castro, who was convinced that Moscow had made the agreement with the US at the expense of Cuba's defense. Mikoyan, on his own initiative, decided that Castro and his military not be given control of the tactical nuclear weapons. During a tense, four-hour meeting, Mikoyan convinced Castro that despite Moscow's desire to help, it would be in breach of an unpublished Soviet law, which did not actually exist, to transfer the missiles permanently into Cuban hands. Castro was forced to give way and, much to the relief of Khrushchev and the rest of the Soviet government, the tactical nuclear weapons were crated and returned by sea to the Soviet Union during December 1962. Back to top Communism Communism claims to be some sort of workers paradise where everyone is "on the same team" and everyone works for the common good and everyone is equal to everyone else. In reality there has never been and probably never will be a true Communist state anywhere on Earth. The states that call themselves communist states are in reality nothing more than ordinary military states. Every country that feels itself threatened by hostile neighbors invariably transforms into a military state. Whether a country calls itself capitalist or communist or socialist or anything else the underlying power system is always the same. A core group of elite controlling everything and channeling as much wealth as possible into their own pockets. Only the coat of paint on the outside changes. From Wikipedia:Privatization in Russia: In the later years of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev relaxed restrictions on private property and introduced initial market reforms. Privatization shifted Russia from the Soviet planned economy towards a market economy, and resulted in a dramatic rise in the level of economic inequality and a collapse in GDP and industrial output. Privatization facilitated the transfer of significant wealth to a relatively small group of business oligarchs and New Russians, particularly natural gas and oil executives. From Wikipedia:Russian oligarch: By the end of the Soviet era in 1991 and during Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika, many Russian businessmen imported or smuggled goods such as personal computers and jeans into the country and sold them, often on the black market, for a hefty profit. During the 1990s, once Boris Yeltsin became President of Russia in 1991, the oligarchs emerged as well-connected entrepreneurs who started from nearly nothing and became rich through participation in the market via connections to the corrupt, but elected, government of Russia during the state's transition to a market-based economy. The so-called voucher-privatization program enabled a handful of young men to become billionaires, specifically by arbitraging the vast difference between old domestic prices for Russian commodities (e.g. gas, oil) and the prices prevailing on the world market. Between 2000 and 2004, Putin apparently engaged in a power struggle with some oligarchs, reaching a "grand bargain" with them. This bargain allowed the oligarchs to maintain their powers, in exchange for their explicit support of – and alignment with – Putin's government. Many more business people have become oligarchs during Putin's time in power, and often due to personal relations with Putin. During Putin's presidency, a number of oligarchs came under fire for various illegal activities, particularly tax evasion in the businesses they acquired. However, it is widely speculated and believed that the charges were also politically motivated. In 2004, Forbes listed 36 billionaires of Russian citizenship, with a note: "this list includes businessmen of Russian citizenship who acquired the major share of their wealth privately, while not holding a governmental position". A 2013 report by Credit Suisse found that 35% of the wealth of Russia was owned by the wealthiest 110 individuals. Back to top "Capitalism" :Privatizing profits and socializing losses :Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor From Wikipedia:Corporate welfare: Subsidies considered excessive, unwarranted, wasteful, unfair, inefficient, or bought by lobbying are often called corporate welfare. Corporations want to reserve financial gains for themselves and pass along losses to the rest of society, potentially through lobbying the government for assistance. Some economists consider the 2008 bank bailouts in the United States to be corporate welfare. U.S. politicians have also contended that zero-interest loans from the Federal Reserve System to financial institutions during the global financial crisis were a hidden, backdoor form of corporate welfare. Policy analysis conducted by the Cato Institute, an American libertarian think tank, argued that United States fiscal policy allocated approximately US$92 billion in the 2006 federal budget toward programs that the authors considered to be corporate welfare. Subsequent analysis by the institute estimated that number to be US$100 billion in the 2012 federal budget. Daniel D. Huff, professor emeritus of social work at Boise State University, published a comprehensive analysis of corporate welfare in 1993. Huff reasoned that a very conservative estimate of corporate welfare expenditures in the United States would have been at least US$170 billion in 1990. Back to top Counterculture Back to top Internet trolls In Internet terminology a troll is someone who comes into an established community such as an online discussion forum and posts inflammatory, rude, repetitive or offensive messages as well as top post flooding and impersonating others -- designed intentionally to annoy or antagonize the existing members or disrupt the flow of discussion. A troll's main goal is to arouse anger and frustration or otherwise shock and offend the message board's other participants, and will write whatever it takes to achieve this end. One common trolling strategy is the practice of Winning by Losing. While the victim is trying to put forward solid and convincing facts to prove his position, the troll's only goal is to infuriate its prey. The troll takes (what it knows to be) a badly flawed, wholly illogical argument, and then vigorously defends it while mocking and insulting its prey. The troll looks like a complete fool, but this is all part of the plan. The victim becomes noticeably angry by trying to repeatedly explain the flaws of the troll's argument. Provoking this anger was the troll's one and only goal from the very beginning." One particularly effective way of provoking anger, and an often used trolling strategy, is the strategy of turning the tables. The troll tries to guess what the other participants are thinking about the troll (for example, "you are a hypocrite") then the troll will accuse the other participants of that. Trolls want to turn every conversation into a trial with themselves as self-appointed judge jury and executioner. Trolls think fascism is "cool". "Cool" means something roughly like "infinitely good". It is the opposite of "infinitely bad". In reality no thing and no one is infinitely good or infinitely bad. Trolls think that anyone who gets angry or fights back is "not cool" and in their minds that is the worst thing anybody can be. Experienced participants in online forums know that the most effective way to discourage a troll is usually to ignore him or her, because responding encourages a true troll to continue disruptive posts — hence the often-seen warning "Please do not feed the troll". From Wikipedia:Gaslighting: Sociopaths consistently transgress social mores, break laws and exploit others. Then, when people try to resist them, sociopaths use gaslighting tactics to undermine their victims resistance. Gaslighting is a frequently used form of psychological manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, and sanity. Sociopaths are convincing liars, sometimes charming ones, who consistently deny wrongdoing. Thus, naive people who have been victimized by sociopaths may indeed doubt their own perceptions. An abuser's ultimate goal is to make their victim second-guess their every choice and question their sanity, making them unable to resist the abuser. Warning signs of gaslighting include: # Blocking and diverting the victim's attention from outside sources; # Verbal abuse, usually in the form of jokes; # Minimalizing their actions (i.e. "Lighten up. I'm just playing with you. Dont you have a sense of humor?"); # Trivializing the victim's worth; and, # Undermining the victim by gradually weakening them and their thought process. A tactic which further degrades a target's self-esteem is for the abuser to ignore, then attend to, then ignore the victim again, so that the victim lowers their personal bar for what constitutes affection and perceives themselves as less worthy of affection. Back to top References Category:Blog posts